Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits Honda's auto manufacturing plant in Alliston, Ont. on April 5.CARLOS OSORIO
Peace push
Re “NATO’s defence spending should go toward countries that need it, not to ourselves” (Opinion, April 27): With NATO already spending more on military preparedness than Russia and China combined, calls to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP are rightly characterized as obsolete. But to then focus on supplying arms “to other countries engaged in wars we will not join” has its own disturbing implications.
A primary one is that arms-supplying countries become champions of others fighting “as long as it takes,” and the most likely consequence is to prolong unwinnable wars. Diplomacy that searches for reasonable and practical settlement options would then be pushed to the sidelines and characterized as weakness and betrayal.
It often emerges that contemporary wars of aggression are not inevitable. For foresight to replace hindsight requires early and persistent attention to brewing conflicts.
Peace initiatives should be guided by the ethic of as much as it takes, for as long as it takes.
Ernie Regehr Waterloo, Ont.
Over a barrel
Re “After 12 years, the $34-billion Trans Mountain pipeline is finally finished. But what happens next?” (Report on Business, April 27): Rueben George of the Tslei-Waututh Nation questions the business case for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. With a price tag of $34-billion, it’s worth examining.
If alternate customers could add close to $7 to the price of a barrel of Western Canadian Select, we’ll need to ship almost five billion barrels to pay for TMX. If having more customers doesn’t end up adding much to prices, it might never pay for itself.
The thing is, it’s not actually our oil: It belongs to the oil companies, so they must be delighted that Canadian taxpayers are shouldering the environmental risks and footing the bill to get their product to market as fast as possible.
So in answer to Mr. George, it’s a fantastic business case for oil companies; for Canadians and those whose land the pipeline runs through, not so much.
Brian Smallshaw Salt Spring Island, B.C.
For richer or…
Re “It’s time to retire subsidies to rich seniors” (Editorial, April 27): As a soon-to-be 70-year-old, I am more and more aggravated with government rewarding laziness and lack of prudence.
Like many Canadians, my wife and I live a conservative life. We paid our 53-per-cent marginal tax rate, at the source, through the nose and on time. We did not travel early in our lives in order to pay off our mortgage.
Yet government distributes pandemic relief to just about everyone but seniors, increases capital-gains tax, offers heat-pump subsidies to lower-income families, etc. It all seems to reward people who spend every dime earned and borrowed, as opposed to those who would have a rainy day fund to face an event such as the pandemic.
A social net is a necessary thing for those who need and deserve it, but it should not be available to reckless spenders who want two all-inclusive vacations every year.
Luc Laliberté Beaconsfield, Que.
Re “The era of big government and industrial policy is here, like it or not” (Report on Business, April 27): “The hands-off approach has, since houses produce nothing, brought the economy to a virtual standstill.”
Unleash it. Tax it. Make it so that investment housing is much less attractive than at present. Tax capital gains not only on cottages, but on principal residences.
I live in a modest side-by-side with a sale value of under $500,000. I would be delighted to pay tax on capital gains to help fund housing for young people, reduce the deficit or pay for better health care, education and decarbonization.
Though I would argue that the threshold for taxing housing wealth should be quite low, “taxing capital gains on investment property at the same rate as income” (”You’re no longer middle-class if you own a cottage or investment property” – Report on Business, April 27) is also worth considering.
Whatever the route chosen, tax me. Fairness demands it, productivity demands it and, selfishly, the prospect of getting decent care in my declining years depends on it.
I am all in. Raise my taxes.
Peter Kirby Kenora, Ont.
For families
Re “More graduates will pursue family medicine in Canada, up from 2023″ (April 26): I have acted as an interviewer in the multiple mini-interview portions of admissions for the medical school at the University of British Columbia.
MMIs purport to assess candidates in three general areas including communication skills, reasoning ability and ethical standards. What this process does not do is assess a candidate’s personality.
Admittedly it is difficult to assess the personality of anyone, but this should not dissuade medical schools from tapping their considerable resources to attempt doing so. A failure to make the difficult but necessary shift would continue the trend of admitting candidates who are only bright and accomplished MMI-takers.
Ian McWhinney, an early pioneer in Canadian family medicine, wrote that patients want their physician to be affable, available and able. I feel that medical schools fall down badly in not admitting more affable candidates, which has led inexorably to the reduction in family medicine graduates.
H. Douglas Cooper MD Vancouver
Was The Globe and Mail’s front-page coverage of the mere 73 new spots for family medicine residencies meant to project hope for the millions of Canadians without a family doctor?
My eldest grandson will graduate in a few weeks from medical school in Ireland. He is an above-average student with an honours undergraduate degree in medical sciences, plus an additional year working for a physician-researcher at a Toronto teaching hospital. He is smart, kind, personable and wants nothing more than to practice family medicine.
Yet he was not offered a family medicine residency in his own country. So, no, key players definitely aren’t “giving the shortage the attention it deserves.”
Lesley Barsky Toronto
All voices
Re “To transform Canadian health care, we must listen to the wisdom of nurses” (April 29): From my recent observations of health care, I realize there are other voices that also need to have input if we are to have a real chance of improving the system.
During the 10 months my wife was in palliative care at home, she had a total of eight hours of home visits by a doctor, 145 hours by a nurse and 3,734 hours from personal support workers. In addition to doctors and nurses, any health discussion should include input from PSWs, Home and Community Care Support Services in Ontario and people like me, who are suddenly thrust into the role of caregiver.
Rex Pattison Clarington, Ont.
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